ZUN and Touhou status update

[game2011]

Of course not, because that's nothing in relation to this series at all. :V

So the heroines get to move around and fire nonstop, while the antagonists just stay in one place and doesn't bother to avoid getting hit?

BEST anime series EVAR!!!!!!

[/sarcasm]

[Starxsword]

Though wasn't his stance on digital downloads for the Touhou Project games not on the likely side?

Stances change. It depends on how much exposure he has to this kind of stuff. It also depends on the culture of the place. Comike seems like a big deal in Japan and having stuff online may hurt it. So, I don't see his stance changing as far as the Japanese audience is concerned.
But for audiences of other countries, it may change. While we do have cons in the US, it isn't nearly as big as Comike or least I don't think so.

[N-Forza]

Digital distribution in Japan is gaining, but the doujin culture is still fairly ingrained here, not to mention the whole meet-n-greet aspect of the events is a considerable draw. I mean, EasyGameStation still shows up at events despite their Recettear windfall, but then again, I would not be surprised if they made more foreign sales of that game than ALL of their domestic purchases combined.

Also, the Touhou series needs a Real Translation. I'm not saying the current ones are completely worthless and they're a decent starting point, but any patch (especially pre-SA) could use a do-over.

I do agree with the three-pack release though. It might be the best way to get the general Steam-enabled public to see them as having enough gameplay value to pick them up.

[Prime32]

So the heroines get to move around and fire nonstop, while the antagonists just stay in one place and doesn't bother to avoid getting hit?

BEST anime series EVAR!!!!!!

[/sarcasm]

Hey, it worked for the Book of Darkness. :derp:

[hungrybookworm]

Official English translations would be amazing, especially if ZUN hires someone familiar with the western touhou fandom (and not do it himself, oh boy). I suspect what will actually happen though is that he'll start making the games more readily available to westerners via direct download or something, or change his doujinshi guidelines a little.

That, or Touhou 15 will feature a blonde Reimu (or Rachael, as she will now be known) fighting an all American youkai cast. :V

[Clarste]

I think the punchline of all this is that he'll translate the games to French, and only French, because he thinks they're oddly popular in France.

[Tengukami]

I think the punchline of all this is that he'll translate the games to French, and only French, because he thinks they're oddly popular in France.

And localize the names.

[Gpop]

And localize the names.

Flandle

[cuc]

ZUN: There will be a PoriPori Club on August 31. The guests are me and the college student game dev group Endless Shirafu. I want to get along well with the young ones, yet somehow there's a "vs" in the title of the show. "An Indie Game Alternation of Generations: The Sober vs. the Drunk, A Merciless Battle"

LuCK ver.2: Please take it easy on us this time...

ZUN: Same here! Please take it easy on us too. Even though we are a bunch of drunks who still have our childish hearts, we are totally not going to be quarrelsome like real kids. We are just some kindly old guys. Don't feel nervous, have a casual chat when the day comes.

Endless Shirafu is the developer of the shooting game ∀kashicverse ? Malicious Wake?.

"Shirafu", meaning literally "white face", refers to a state of sobriety. This is where the joke of "the Sober vs. the Drunk" comes from, but I don't know if this is the intended reading of the name "Endless Shirafu".


The last month's ComicREX magazine can be read for free on NicoNico Seiga (sister site of NicoNico Douga):
http://seiga.nicovideo.jp/watch/bk43020

The "Outgoing Edition" of WaHH starts from Page 168 (the magazine reads from right to left, so even the seek bar moves from right to left).

As I said, WaHH "Outgoing Edition" is a short, full-colored, lighthearted and fanfic-ish alternate perspective look on the events of WaHH. Probably not written by ZUN.

Meanwhile, in this month's "Outgoing Edition", we have nameless kappa and demonic Reimu (more at source):




On Japanese twitter, people are celebrating a legal victory against the doujin retailer White Canvas. Wait, wasn't ZUN settled with them after the 2011 controversy? Is this a different controversy and lawsuit? I'll post more when I understand the situation better.

[N-Forza]

White Canvas had a really bad reputation even before the ZUN debacle. Not paying circles for their stuff they sold, not returning stock to circles (and selling what they didn't), etc. Basically what they did to ZUN but they got away with it because most circles don't command his influence. I imagine someone finally took them to court over it.

[Helepolis]

I like the Kappa lineup, as if they are going out for combat. Someone should really make a tactical Kappa game, though I guess those are around.

[MaStErSpArK94]

I like the Kappa lineup, as if they are going out for combat. Someone should really make a tactical Kappa game, though I guess those are around.

An Advance Wars-like game with Kappas? That would be neat. :V

Also, we need more named Kappas. Nitori isn't enough imo.

[cuc]

Summary of the White Canvas case:

The doujin creator "Yuusha Yosshii" started selling his Touhou-derived goods (mainly "Touhou danmaku T-shirts") through White Canvas 4 years ago. They used to return his income (ranging from a few thousand to dozens of thousand yen) each month, until they stopped doing so in Jan 2012.

No reply was ever given for his inquiry. In fact, White Canvas was still selling his goods in their stock, without him seeing any return. He started a civil lawsuit, and won the lawsuit today.

Link:
http://q.hatena.ne.jp/1377523438
https://twitter.com/yossiy7

[Clarste]

And most likely White Canvas will continue to do it as long as few enough people sue them for it to remain profitable.

[SeasideCharizard]

Seems we're all speaking from our immediate social circle. I'll just chime in to say that I can count on one hand the number of people I know from outside this forum who have heard of Touhou.

I kinda see this as highly unusual, considering I don't lurk around these so-called "certain forums" aside from this one at all, and there's no way I can count the number of people who have heard of Touhou as far as I know on two hands. From experience, in other fandoms, it is very widespread, but it's not exactly prominent.

The last month's ComicREX magazine can be read for free on NicoNico Seiga (sister site of NicoNico Douga):
http://seiga.nicovideo.jp/watch/bk43020

The "Outgoing Edition" of WaHH starts from Page 168 (the magazine reads from right to left, so even the seek bar moves from right to left).

As I said, WaHH "Outgoing Edition" is a short, full-colored, lighthearted and fanfic-ish alternate perspective look on the events of WaHH. Probably not written by ZUN.

Meanwhile, in this month's "Outgoing Edition", we have nameless kappa and demonic Reimu (more at source):

That Reimu is very, very creepy. Probably very terrifying as well.  :ohdear:

[Clarste]

Nameless kappa seem to be a recurring thing in WaHH. Personally I like the bookie.

[monhan]

The "Outgoing Edition" of WaHH starts from Page 168 (the magazine reads from right to left, so even the seek bar moves from right to left).

As I said, WaHH "Outgoing Edition" is a short, full-colored, lighthearted and fanfic-ish alternate perspective look on the events of WaHH. Probably not written by ZUN.

Meanwhile, in this month's "Outgoing Edition", we have nameless kappa and demonic Reimu (more at source):

Reimu seems angry because of something from chapter 13... what happened, again?

[Clarste]

Reimu seems angry because of something from chapter 13... what happened, again?

Chapter 13 was the one where the kappa moved to the mountain because Seiga destroyed their home in 12. They start playing war games and Reimu blames them for hurting people (even though it wasn't their fault: Kasen lied about it to protect the animals).

[cuc]

ZUN's "Reader Engineering" lecture went well - the hosts said he's the most talkative guest they had. I'll write a dedicated report after they publish the video recording of the lecture online - this will probably take priority over some other things I promised to do.


Did you know Tokyo Game Show 2013, to be opened on September 21 and 22, will have a section dedicated to indie games, and some Western indie game creators will attend it?

Well, they'll also put on a show called "Indie Game Fest 2013" (not to be confused with the international event Independent Game Festival). Yesterday, they released some partial schedule of Indie Game Fest 2013, and... woah, it's full of Touhou. There'll be demonstration of DDC and HM, as well as Yatagarasu, Astebreed, ∀kashicverse, La Mulana, Cave Story+, Monken and other games. But otherwise, the schedule is filled up with live performance of Touhou songs by doujin musicians.

A fan made this infograph:

DDC and ∀kashicverse will be demonstrated by their creators on stage at 10:50 - 11:45, Sep 21.
HM will be demonstrated at 13:20 - 13:55, Sep 22.
The yellow items are all Touhou live performances.

Everyone, of course including ZUN, found this arrangement's "Japanese indie game = Touhou" image troubling. A Touhou fan who sounds like he's a staff member on the show, ensured us there are many more activities to be revealed, and Touhou only features in 2 of 12 activities.

Whatever happens, ZUN will unavoidably be a star of the event. There are a lot to look forward to this September.

[N-Forza]

Clearly the other doujin game series need to step their game up so they can inspire cover bands.

[Imosa]

"Reader Engineering" What?... i... is ZUN and engineer?

[cuc]

It's simply a fancy name the organizers give to their lecture/talk series about storytelling.

[Formless God]

I can already see it

ZUN plays DDC Lunatic
pick MarisaB
BOMBA BOMBA BOMBA BOMBA BOMBA BOMBA
YGW sees this shit, commits sudoku the day after
ZUN is now YGW
2hu16 will be a rank control game

[Blue]

YGW sees this shit, commits sudoku the day after

How does one commit sudoku? I think you might mean seppuku.

[ToyoRai]

How does one commit sudoku? I think you might mean seppuku.

thatsthejoke.jpg

[Blue]

thatsthejoke.jpg

...I feel stupid now. I should stop posting when I'm really sleep-deprived.

[cuc]

I've heard an interesting new tidbit you can't get from any Japanese sources.

 from the Weibo (twitter-like site in China; you must register to see content) of 77gl, Chinese Touhou fan artist who drew the cover art of Reitaisai 10 catalog:

77gl: I gave Kannushi my doujin artbook full of naked Reimu, then me and i-san listened to him talking about the fleet girl game until the midnight.

77gl: Kannushi is only keeping watch on games that are currently popular... Don't get excited...

Note:
1. "Artbook full of naked Reimu": 77gl typically draws crowd scenes densely packed with sight gags. Reimu's trademark is she's so poor she has no clothes.
2. "i-san": ideolo, Chinese Touhou fan artist, designer of the Chinese Vocaloid characters.

The "fleet girl" game mentioned here is 艦隊これくしょん "Kantai Collection". The name means "Fleet Collection", and is often shortened to "KanColle". This is a Japanese mobile broswer game where players collect and do battle with bishoujo version of Japanese WW2 warships. This game is the current biggest trend among Japanese moe otaku, with its popularity growing at an astounding rate since its release this April, and its fan work taking over Pixiv and NicoNico.

Because the Japanese Touhou fandom is primarily moe otaku, KanColle has also taken the Touhou fandom by storm, starting with creators like Tasogare Frontier. I've seen people complained that nowadays many Touhou creators' tweets read like this:

>KanColle
>KanColle
>KanColle
>KanColle
>Here's my new Touhou doujin at Comiket 84
>KanColle

ZUN has already brought up KanColle during the "Reader Engineering" lecture. At this moment, it seems ZUN haven't actually started seriously playing the game - previously he said he can't get into current mobile social games like Puzzle & Dragons. Rather, he's analyzing what works about KanColle with an almost academic interest.

[Bio]

KanColle isn't a mobile game, it's a Japan-only web browser game hosted by DMM.com and developed by Kadokawa Games. As of currently it has spawned 146 pages of fanart (or pictures in general) in Danbooru.

It's main selling point are the bishoujo warships as the gameplay is subpar even for a browser game (there isn't much in terms of active gameplay), but the official art for the ships do come from a variety of artists.

(I may or may not actively waste time in this)

[N-Forza]

I have no interest in the game itself, but the way they charge for things and the way the game has been trying to deal with its sudden popularity is kind of interesting.

Basically from everything I've seen (with KanColle, FFXIV, and a couple of personal experiences), Japanese devs have a very hard time dealing with massive traffic in online games. Of course, there's often trouble in western games, particularly around launch time, but they're generally handled swiftly. KanColle has had to limit new accounts to a lottery system, only giving out 8,000 or so every couple of days. And you wouldn't think a game like this would be all that data-intensive (or at least I wouldn't) but yeah. I also heard from another friend that even with their popularity, the devs really aren't making that much off the game because they made it too easy to do well without paying money. It would make for an interesting case study.

So, I can understand ZUN's academic interest in it (although I pretty much lost all interest in trying it once I saw there was "battle damage").

[Bio]

As far as I know, the game only charges for extra instant repairs/builds/development tools and these for the most part can be stockpiled through dailies. The only thing that can't be as easily obtained are coins for purchasing cosmetic items which go as far as affecting the main screen, which players will hardly be on, and these coins aren't extremely rare either.